Walmart plans to deploy 100,000 Macs to save on employee PC costs-----------------------------------------------------------------As the world's largest retailer, Walmart is known for its "EverydayLow Prices" slogan. It's now in the planning stages of rolling outan employee Mac choice' program in an effort to save costs longterm while enhancing the productivity of its employees usingpremium Apple hardware.

Walmart outlined its Mac choice program at this week's Jamf NationUser Conference, the largest Apple-focused IT event in the world,now being held near Jamf's headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

JNUC has previously gained attention for its previous years'presentations by IBM, where the global tech services firm detailedits own employee Mac choice program after finding significant costsavings associated with employee migrations from Windows PCs toMacs.

IBM noted that PC users drive twice the number of support callscompared to Mac users, and that PC support tickets require desk sidesupport by IT personnel five times as often. The company's ownanalysis showed that each Mac deployed saves the company $270 insupport costs compared to a Windows PC.

Walmart is a very different type of company, but has already founda significant drop in support costs among its current installed baseof 7,000 Mac users, managed using Jamf Pro software and Apple'sDevice Enrollment Program.

Walmart's Technical Expert Miles Leacy reported that across asimilar set of users, Windows PCs generate about 60 percent of allsupport issues compared to 40 percent related to Macs.

Walmart plans to roll out an expanded Mac choice program like IBM's,and expects to deploy as many as 100,000 Macs across the next year.Leacy noted that Macs could become the default choice for newemployees, given Total Cost of Ownership savings.

While Apple's premium Mac hardware typically costs more upfrontthan comparable Windows PCs, lower support costs, less expensivelicensing fees, higher user satisfaction and higher residual valuefor reselling used equipment at the end of its scheduled usecontribute toward what Leacy called "Everyday Low Cost" for Walmart.

Beyond its plans to dramatically expand the use of Macs internally,Walmart has long acted as a retail partner with Apple in sellingiPods, iPhones and iPads. And while the two companies have alsoengaged in competition - including the retailer's effort to launchWalmart Pay and its acquisition of Vudu video streaming as acompetitor to iTunes Movies - the two firms have increasinglycollaborated.

Walmart executives noted last year that the company's QR Code paymentapp could add support for Apple Pay, and this year the companyannounced support for Vudu as an app for Apple TV.

Walmart expects to officially announce its employee Mac choiceprogram in the coming months. A series of other larger corporateusers have also addressed expanding employee choice programs likeIBM's at JNUC, in addition to large consulting firms (including IBMand Deloitte) directly supporting the development of iOS apps fortheir clients.

Post by Your NameFrom AppleInsider.com ...Walmart plans to deploy 100,000 Macs to save on employee PC costs-----------------------------------------------------------------As the world's largest retailer, Walmart is known for its "EverydayLow Prices" slogan. It's now in the planning stages of rolling outan employee Mac choice' program in an effort to save costs longterm while enhancing the productivity of its employees usingpremium Apple hardware.

rest snipped........

speaking as one who has been supporting windows users sincewindows 95 I would say about 90% of my support work waswindows based and the other 10% was mac based, but that waslargely social.More recently I have been guiding windows users to linux inits various shapes and forms when people were unwilling tospend the money on macs......Good for them...

Post by martinspeaking as one who has been supporting windows users sincewindows 95 I would say about 90% of my support work waswindows based and the other 10% was mac based, but that waslargely social.

that's mainly because windows *needs* support, not for any socialreasons.

Post by martinMore recently I have been guiding windows users to linux inits various shapes and forms when people were unwilling tospend the money on macs......

that's incredibly bad advice, given that there's *far* less softwareand support available for linux than for windows or mac, both of whichcost about the same for similar specs.

Post by martinspeaking as one who has been supporting windows users sincewindows 95 I would say about 90% of my support work waswindows based and the other 10% was mac based, but that waslargely social.

that's mainly because windows *needs* support, not for any socialreasons.

Post by martinMore recently I have been guiding windows users to linux inits various shapes and forms when people were unwilling tospend the money on macs......

that's incredibly bad advice, given that there's *far* less softwareand support available for linux than for windows or mac, both of whichcost about the same for similar specs.

well for lots of peoples requirements, a bit of browsing, webmailor maybe even thunderbird and an good free office suite linux,particularly linux mint serves lots of peoples needs, it comeswith firefox, thunderbird, vlc, you run skype on it without anyhassle, and you donr get the hassle of windows update and allcpu intensive av software etc, there is actually plenty ofsupport online, plus they can call me, obviously if you want todo something different to all that, get a mac or put up withall the shite that comes with windows, actually most of the peopleI have migrated are over 70 and some are over 80 and they are alldeighted......

Post by nospamthat's incredibly bad advice, given that there's *far* less softwareand support available for linux than for windows or mac, both of whichcost about the same for similar specs.

So much wrongness in one short sentence from someone lacking the ballsto give themselves a name.

if there's so much wrong, then it should be easy for you to point itout with credible references to back it up, and without resorting to adhominem attacks (amusing, since 'huge' is not a name), which you'reonly doing because it's exactly true and you *can't* refute it.